The Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind “Last Days in Vietnam” and “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” — and youngest child of late Sen. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy — had spent years making “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” a 2022 documentary exploring the “profits over people” approach at the airplane manufacturer, from outsourcing its parts to covering up safety issues, that led to a pair of its 737 MAX planes crashing within five months of each other, claiming 346 lives. And then John Barnett, the chief whistleblower against Boeing and key subject of her doc, was found dead in his car in March of 2024, one day prior to his third deposition, under what Kennedy calls “quite suspicious circumstances.” “I had interviewed John Barnett for ‘Downfall’ and had kept up that relationship with him because he was such a special person,” Kennedy tells Variety.
Over the course of trying to figure out what happened to him and being in touch with his lawyers and really trying to understand the circumstances, that was motivation for me to go back and tell this story.” So, Kennedy made a follow-up film, “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing,” premiering Aug. 19 on Netflix (just like its predecessor). It follows the investigation into Barnett’s mysterious death and contains testimony from former Boeing employees who contend that the company failed to dramatically improve its safety standards, as well as that of victims’ families outraged by the Trump Department of Justice’s $1.1 billion nonprosecution agreement with Boeing, whereby they’d avoid any criminal convictions over the 737 MAX crashes and retain their status as a government contractor. Barnett served as Boeing’s quality manager from 1985 to 2017, and for the last seven of those years had managed quality control at the Boeing South Carolina plant, which produces the 787 Dreamliner.
According to “Freefall,” Jim McNerney, a Jack Welch protégé who served as Boeing CEO from 2005-2015, incorporated a “profits above all else” approach at the company whereby parts were outsourced from other countries and labor for the Dreamliner was moved to the South Carolina plant, since it was nonunion. There was a running joke at the South Carolina plant that anyone able to handle a screwdriver could be hired there, and damning undercover videos filmed in the plant, and shown in “Freefall,” see Boeing employees confessing that because the Dreamliner was built with rotted scrap parts, they wouldn’t fly on it even if their family was offered a free vacation around the world. When you’re up at 30,000 feet you hope the bolts are installed correctly.” When asked if she’d never fly on a Boeing 737 MAX or 787 Dreamliner, Kennedy didn’t mince words.
And honestly, the Dreamliner as well. I wouldn’t get on a Dreamliner,” she maintains. I see how it’s built.’ If they’re not going to get on it, I’m not going to get on it.” Barnett, meanwhile, began reporting safety violations to Boeing in 2013, but was admonished for putting his concerns in writing.
They said flat-out they do not want anything in documentation so they can maintain culpable deniability.” Indeed, Boeing is alleged to have retaliated against Barnett, repeatedly demoting him by reassigning him to other departments where he couldn’t kick up a fuss. This led to massive profits and a financial windfall for McNerney, who left Boeing in 2015 as a company savior with a retirement package of close to $50 million. His hand-picked successor, Dennis Muilenberg, took over, and as the doc contends, it was more of the same.
In 2017, a fed-up Barnett filed a whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and, after being warned by his doctor that his heart would give out due to the stress if he stayed at Boeing, retired from the company. The first occurred on Oct. 29, 2018, when Lion Air Flight 610 went down in Indonesia, killing 189 people; followed by Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019, which took the lives of 157 people. Both were 737 MAX planes, and both were due to a faulty plane-stabilizing feature called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System that Boeing had reportedly tried to scrub from flight manuals.
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